Barren Mare

In one ear and out the other

I think I may have inadvertently called down the furies about myself with that last little diatribe  about the not-listening, because Botany has come down with a nasty ear-based infection/lurgy/hacking-like-a- baby-seal pup illness.

She woke up on Thursday complaining grumpily about a sore ear, so I dosed her up with Calpol and waited an hour to see if she was any better. Within half an hour she was eating a bowl of cereal bigger than her head and demonstrating her new tapdancing steps with accompanying armflail whilst serending us with the "Good Ship Lollypop". Good to go, I thought, and packed her off. E. reported later that when he picked her up she was tired and fussy but relatively OK.

Friday was a similar story- rise, complain, dose, pack off. The morning passed by uneventfully. Botany's nursery was closing at noon anyway for staff training and when I arrived to collect her, she was asleep in sad little heap on a mat holding her left ear. I scooped her up, took her home as she wept piteously "Sorrrrre earrrr, mummy." When we got in, she went straight to her room, climbed in bed and slept for two hours, after which she got up and practiced wind sprints up and down the hallway.

Rinse, lather, repeat. The painkiller dose works its considerable magic for about three and half hours, sometimes slightly less after which she is reduced to a crumpled wreck. On Saturday night, she woke up after two hours and came wandering through, crying, in her little Tinkerbell nightie and was inconsolable until a hot water bottle was produced for her on which to place her sore ear. She stayed up until 11.30 pm, woke us all up for a round of boules at 5am then went back to bed for a bit before getting up at 8am for the day. Needless to say, day time naps have made a reappearance recently.

 On Sunday night, she treated me to only two wake ups at the hours of 2.30am and 6am.  The return to sleep deprivation is a cruel blow, indeed. I began to think we must surely be coming out of the worst of it, but on the advice of my ear-nose and throat specialist friend, I decided I would be phoning the doctor if it carried on one more day.

Yesterday she woke up with pain in her...right ear. Argh. Argh. I duly trotted her down to the GP, where we waited for 40 minutes in a hot, overcrowded waiting room. Botany sat limply on my lap, whimpering for dramatic effect and announced to the waiting public that she would like to "get out of here". Wouldn't we all, kiddo. The doctor prodded her with the stethoscope and looked in her ears. Viral, he suggested. Left ear has cleared up nicely, now just that pesky right ear. But here's a prescription for antibiotics just in case it drags on until Thursday. Oh, and no need to keep her home.

Right, I said, and we slushed home in the rain. Botany climbed back into her bed and went to sleep. I stared out the window, in a caffeine induced twitchery, thinking how lucky I am she's so rarely been ill these last three years and how badly it is sucking now that she is.

This morning's post Calpol treat was a dramatic re-enactment of "Tangled" with Botany alternating playing both Rapunzel and the hero boy guy man thing. After applauding vigorously, I shoehorned her into the car, threw some croissants in the backseat and off we went in high spirits. Upon our arrival at nursery, I explained to the staff about the whole ear thing and they looked at her, slightly horrified. Should she be in? Yes, well, the doctor said yes and besides she's FINNNNE. Botany took it upon herself to look droopy and peaky at that particular moment.

"And oh my god, I have work up to my eyeballs," I blurted before clamping my lips firmly down over my gob. You see, there's this little project I have going on,  a looming scary deadline at the end of March with £250 million pounds at stake. But of course, my precious child's wellbeing comes first! So if she's unwell, call me, I told them.

So of course they did, when they hit that crucial three and a half hour post- painkiller mark and Botany reverted in "owee owwee" pathos "lump mode.

"Give her some stuff," I said "and if she's not building a replica of the Eiffel tower with popsicle sticks in half an hour, I'll be there." An hour later, they called to say she was...asleep.

And so it goes, this afternoon yet another a deja vu of the days before, with the dosing and the exuberant recovery and the slow decline into agony. I don't know what to do about the antibiotics- I am inclined to agree that it is viral, and so giving her that medication would have no effect. But what do I know. I'm almost ready to try it at this point

Plus, if the reliance on Calpol goes on until Thursday, I'm really screwed- her other nursery have a will-not medicate policy without prescription. In other words, they won't give her anything. Nada. They cheerily informed me of this when I tried to leave an emergency Calpol sachet the other day. Not even if I sign a consent for the giving of just 5ml of baby paracetemol.  Of course, I am welcome to come round myself to give her the medication. That would be dandy and nifty and all kinds of other faux perkiness, except that it suits neither me or Botany really, since other than having the benefit of the pain relief my daughter is apt to be more than a little upset at my leaving her again (or at least until her urge to solve the Riemannn zeros hypothesis kicks in).

Add to all this that I myself am feeling a bit fragile having only just recovering from a particular disgusting cold (the superphlegm of which actually rendered me unable to speak for an entire day at one point) and E. is out of the country for a week, so no help with childcare- and you know, just generally February in Scotland. Bleeeechh.

The pox on Knox

That loud, slightly wet noise you may have heard emanating from Scotland in the last week has been the sound of my life sucking.

At first, when Knox was diagnosed with chicken pox (by a doctor who called him “poor sweetie”, bless) people kept telling him/us how bad it can be in adults. Unfortunately, he’d completely missed the opportunity to take anti-viral drugs, but all he had a few clear blisters and itchy spots springing up. So we shrugged and prepared ourselves the possibility of for a few grim days, all the while thinking “how bad can it be, really?”

Oh, well. Bad, as it turns out- very very bad.

Within 24 hours he was reduced to a feverish, pox covered wreck, lying in a sweaty shaking pile on a mattress in the living room (having kept me up all the night before with his squirming). The spots developed into disgusting, white fluid filled pustules all over his body, face and inside his mouth and throat. By Monday, he had such a bad headache that I made him go back to the doctor to get checked out. He was made to touch his nose, raise his shoulders and walk in a straight line, after which more potent painkillers were prescribed. That was probably the lowest point-he’s perked up considerably and some of the yuckier of the pox have started to dry up. Still plenty of oozing ones remain, however.

Prior to Knox falling ill, we’d been discussing arrangements involving me "keeping an eye" on the business for a week or so while he went off for a quick holiday with a friend of his. Knox’s hobby is not one that I can or particularly wish to participate in- but I feel badly that in the last two years since we met, he hasn’t been away once on an activity trip. And so I was prepared to send him off with my blessing, firm in the knowledge it would generally boost morale around the house and give me hundreds if not thousands of brownie points.

It is, however, a quite different proposition to be required to pick up the pieces of actually running that business with no prior notice-and no advance preparation. With Botany off with E., I spent the entire weekend dashing hither and thither getting things we needed, all the while looking longingly at my book, my bed and my box of bonbons. My mood was further tested when I realised on Monday that, in between doing shopping, cleaning and laundry for our own home and taking Knox to the doctor and looking after Botany, there were still more things required. And you can just imagine my primal scream of frustration whereupon discovering on Tuesday night (once it was too late for me to go out) that even more hunting and gathering of essential stuff was needed, hence having to do it all during my lunch hour (at you know, my normal job) on Wednesday, in the rain.

As I vented my frustration to him, Knox informed me from his sickbed, in no uncertain terms, that I should just "chill out"-whereupon I beat him to death with the television remote control.     

Anyway- I think he's is over the worst of the pox now, and apart from feeling generally blech with weakness, on the mend. As of tomorrow we should start to be back on more of an even keel. Oh how I hope.

 

 

 

 

 

Dear Liza

Days and days and days go by. In the rare spare seconds not consumed by brutally relentless work or parenting, I want to sleep or to just be, staring mindlessly at the telly with a glass of wine in my hand or occasionally reading. No matter how many blog posts I compose in my head in the shower or driving to work, by the time I actually get a minute to sit down and write, every last bit of creativity or motivation suddenly evaporates. It’s not that the well has run dry; there is certainly plenty in the depths that I want to say and share. But the bucket has a leak and I worry sometimes that it is fatally damaged and cannot be mended. Yet, although I continully come up empty handed, I don’t want to throw it away completely.  

I had an idea awhile back that the only way I could continue this was to stop writing so many long, lovingly composed letters to the internet, and instead start sending postcards for now. This approach doesn’t come naturally to me, which is probably why it failed before. I seem to have this inbuilt sense that unless there is a need for stark brevity, a post has to comprise so many words before ending. Sort of like I always know if I have left a cookie half eaten somewhere, it bothers to me to stop short. And- leaving aside my sense that I have to go at a certain length I’ve always thought that adopting this method might end up being akin to something resembling a slightly longer Twitter message, and Twitter tends to bug me. Having thought about why that is, I realised it’s because I become flustered by the sense of constant, distracting chatter and not knowing how to find my place in that seemingly overwhelming conversation.

However, I’m going to try this again and see if I can find my way back from feeling like this has become yet another chore that I never have time to complete properly, and enjoying the basic act of drawing up water.  

 

 

Thorn birds

Whoops, there goes another fortnight...you know, I probably wouldn't even notice these long lapses of time, were it not for the gentle reminders from the nice folks who pay me a little bit of cash from time to time for running an ad at the side bar.

Things are- well- not so good here, unfortunately. Sometimes I look at my life and wonder how anybody can possibly endure such endless sequences of mini-dramas, particularly as I can't see any tendency on my part to seek it out for myself. I'd be quite happy if nothing more interesting than the strange fungus brewing on my dishwasher ever happened to me again, thank you very much.

Anyway, this latest episode involves a normally verboten blog topic, namely my parents. The details are alternately too private or too boring to go into it- suffice to say that upon their arrival, my father immediately came down with a nasty digestive infection which rendered them more or less housebound for the first couple weeks of their stay. Then I did my usual exercise of trying to negotiate all the various warring family factions, competing priorities and hidden agendas. Apparently I did it especially badly on this occasion, since it resulted in my mother flying into a rage and sending me an email headed "The End" in which she called me a fool, among other things and basically suggested that I am now the black sheep of the family. THE END, indeed.

Hitherto, black sheepedness was a role happily manned by my brother, but in recent years he has come back into the fold, so perhaps the field normally occupied by the family ne'er do well is looking a little too vacant for my mother's taste. In years gone by, a dispute of this type might well have ended with an extended and silent stand off, but there is Botany to think of and nobody wants to see her without her grandparents for the duration of their summer stay. So a wary truce has broken out- we'll see how it goes.

In the meantime, I'm frankly depressed by the whole thing. Perhaps rather selfishly I was very much looking forward to having a wider support system and indeed an extra pair of hands around here, if only to help me shovel out the pig sty of my flat from time to time, and it hasn't happened. I think I am simply going to have to get a grip and start relying on either my own force of will to get all the jobs done, or pay somebody to do it. This is probably fairer, anyway, all around, but it always takes me awhile to get my expectations adjusted in line with reality. I also don't do too well with being in the bad books or having people being angry with me- it freaks me out really badly, to be honest. If I ever get a minute to have my head examined I should probably figure out the root of it all- I know that I've felt this way as long as I can remember. Once, when I was about five, I recall offering my dad a dollar by way of apology for being naughty (and this was after getting a spanking, too!).  

Knox has just come in the door with stories from the front line of the still-struggling business. We thought at one point it was going better but then it seems like we have had another dip. I know running a business involves considerable resourcefulness, dedication, tenacity if only to avoid burnout. But right now we are both possessed with an overwhelming urge to have a summer holiday, doing sweet fanny adams, lying like broccoli on a beach somewhere while Botany cavorts around in her little polka dot swimsuit in the sand blowing bubbles and building misshapen castles before knocking them down over and over again. Alas, rainy Scotland and the day to day grind holds us captive for the foreseeable future. 

We did manage one very quick trip away last weekend, to a quaint seaside cottage rented by Knox's mother- and we got to stay for about 36 hours. The weather turned overcast and stormy, and the central heating ws required to be on the whole time we were there. Knox and I went out for a quick walk when Botany finally went to bed- it was an idyllic little stroll down by the pretty shorefront. Then, as we ducked up an old cobbled lane to get back, we saw a baby black bird that had obviously fallen out of the nest. It hopped out of our way and down to the bottom of the line while we cooed over it-oh, poor little thing. And then as we were looking to see if we could find the nest, a huge greedy sparrow hawk suddenly SWOOPED out of the sky and attacked it right there on the ground, about six inches in front of me. As I stood there with my jaw dropping, it proceeded to tear the baby bird to bits and then fly off with it in its beak, while the mummy blackbird shrieked in appalled horror above. Knox and I stood there whimpering in dismay for a minute and then retreated to the safety of the cottage before we could witness any more wildlife.

Urgh. Urrrrgh! Nature is red in tooth and claw. THE END.

Problem child

This may seem completely obvious to anyone who has ever started up a new business, but I’ve realised that in some ways, it’s a bit like having your first baby. You're very excited at the start, slightly nervous and full of uncertainty but yet happily anticipating the day you are up and running. Lots of people wish you well and say they will be supportive. You work yourself half to death labouring to get ready. Then as soon as you begin, you realise you have absolutely no effing idea how to do this, you are totally overwhelmed by the enormity of what you have taken on, you stay up all night working/worrying, and you realise the life you had before seems like its completely over. On the third day you come home and cry a lot while contemplating having a complete nervous breakdown. There are small arguments over relative trivialities and huge rows about the big picture. 

 

And then you get up the next day, and the next and the next and get on with it as best you can, in between mini panic attacks, lack of sleep and a general sense of anxiety and doom. In this case, I may not be so worried about dropping the baby on her head (or suddenly out of a window, which was a horrendous recurring mental image of mine  when Botany was a newborn)- but I am worried that we’re going to fail, and all that we worked for will be lost with nothing to show for it.   

 

People keep saying it will get better and it might but right now it does feel like something of a long dark tunnel for both me and Knox.  What surprised me somewhat is how quickly it morphed from being his business to really being our business. In hindsight, given what he was taking on, that was always going to be the reality but I was in some form of denial as to how much input might be needed from me. I suppose on the upside I am already used to working 16 hour days (what with already having a day job and a parenting job) so in many ways it’s not all that different to my current pace of life.  But it feels like some things I love and enjoy are falling by the wayside somewhat. Reading for fun? No time. Cooking proper meals? Not so much. Writing carefully crafted blog posts and starting my novel? Oh, how I wish.

 

I suppose it’s also probably just as well that, given the current levels of stress in the house, there isn’t another new baby on the way. I’ve been so busy that the complete lack of success in that department has barely even registered on the radar of problems. My real worry is that in six months' time, I will look up from working like a crazed weasel and discover that oops! I’m over forty! And I’m truly past it!        

 

Meanwhile, I’ve been feeling quite wistful in that I don’t get as nearly much time with Botany as I used to. She’s been completely sweet about a relative lack of attention from me up and indeed, been behaving like a angel- until this past weekend when I finally had a chance to spend a couple of days with her in a row. I eagerly looked forward to it all week and when it finally arrived, she immediately morphed back into a nightmarish little beast. Whining endlessly, throwing the toy I bought her for Easter at me, kicking me during nappy changes, impudently running away in the store car park and generally being something of a contrary pain in the ass. I  confess that her crying “I want my Daddy” repeatedly during one particular tantrum was especially irritating. Botany, my delicious darling, your Daddy is on yet another extended business trip out of the country for another two weeks, leaving me once again to carry the load on mostly on my own, so please don’t go there.

 

I’m not entirely sure what prompted Botany’s sudden change of temperament. Change of routine? Frustration at realising how much she's been missing me too lately? Or just the sudden whiff of power shift? I think if I am being honest, my guilt at not having more time with her has probably caused me to revert back to more of a pushover than I have been in recent months. It’s as if she can sense- and exploit- the slightest chink in my maternal armour and before I know it, I am being ordered around like a slave and dictated to by a toddler. It’s hard for me to find a balance between being a loving, attentive mother and also being the Top Dog in the house, She Who Will Not be Disrespected.    

 

I never like ending posts on a bad note if I can help it though, so I will counter some of the sense of doom and gloom by saying that at least my dental visit was fine in the end. I simply needed to have a further filling put into the root canal tooth.  It's slightly strange having a procedure done with no need for numbing up in advance- somehow, the idea that there is no nerve there definitely equals no pain required more of a leap of faith than my otherwise rational mind might have believed- but it was quick and yes, painless. Let us hope that the next visit in six months finds me in a calmer state all around.     

 

My big holiday

I somehow managed to end the year with a lot of holiday leave to use up from work, so I took a few days off and put Botany into nursery as usual. The last time I did this was before the wedding, and for most of time, I was either stressing out about last minute details or else the painter was working on the windows in my flat, which meant a strange man hanging halfway out the sills in various rooms, music blaring on his ipod. It was not exactly relaxing. So I had higher hopes for this mini-break. 

The first day looked like this: Woke up and threw some clothes over my thermal underwear, which I have barely removed since the Big Freeze. Did the usual morning toddler wrangling session, drove to work in the treacherous conditions, dropped Botany off, drove to the grocery store, did the full shop (including some comfort food items), came home, unpacked groceries, tried to take recycling down to overflowing bin, tidied up breakfast dishes. Ate two cream buns whilst reading the internet. Went back to bed for three hours. A bit more surfing and then...oh, look, time to pick up Botany. Drive back to nursery and home in time for...E's visit. Wait a minute. He lives literally across the road from Botany's nursery- does not compute. 

The second day- repeat morning session but omit grocery store and gorging on cream buns. Substitute potato chips. And also, I told E. that really, it would help a lot if he could pick up Botany that day and the next day. I had a long, long nap from which I could barely wake up, and when I did, I realised that my mental state is not the best at the moment. 

The third day, I made an effort to take a shower and get dressed, then got on the bus for some sale shopping. Ended up buying three things, two dresses for Botany and a coat for myself which may be a tiny bit too tight in the bust- and none of which were on sale. Came home and had another quick nap before E. returned with Botany. Mental state slightly improved by foray into the wider world, but not by much.     

I think, underlying everything, is a sense of constantly, permanently struggling to get things right- with Botany, with Knox, with E., with my parents. And I seem to be continually failing in some regard, all the while just trying to keep afloat with the day-to-day grind of working and parenting. Cue what I think is the onset of some mild depression- I'm going to try to go talk to someone about it in the next week or two.

Thank you all so much for your comments about my last post; I do appreciate it. Knox and I have talked and talked about it; but it remains a very sore subject, one which is probably not really suitable for further dissection in this space at this point. I'm thinking seeing a child psychologist or some sort of family counsellor would probably be helpful but whether Knox will agree to that (and what worth it might have for him) is a bit unclear at this point. I'm trying to see everything from both sides, but this business of blending families is undeniably extremely hard and right now I am feeling more than a little sad and anxious about it all. Your good thoughts are, as always, very welcome. 

Snow White, Rose Red

I woke this morning to find the streets and rooftops covered in snow, and my period arriving in full swing. The answer would appear to be most definitively "no", then. I think it's pretty clear that I was not, in fact, pregnant at all and the second line was simply a false positive.

I'm probably more disappointed than I should be, having only myself to blame for the building up of erroneous hopes. The lesson I take from this for future is to use the tests properly, in the prescribed time limits- and to leave the damn rubbish bin alone. I consoled myself with the smell of my daughter's hair when I picked her up from nursery, and her sweet kiss goodnight.  Come what may, I think I'm still very, very lucky.

And now- a large glass of wine awaits...

Losses and limbo and timeouts

I didn't mean to leave you hanging in zombie mouse limbo, but we're having a bad week here at the house of Mare, and not just with undead mice.

The business deal that Knox had been painstakingly negotiating for the last month fell through just as it looked like it was about to be sealed. Two days later, his grandfather died. Fortunately Knox was in town and managed to be there by his side when it happened, but unfortunately the reason Knox was here because he has a dreadful cold and was off work sick anyway. I feel like I'm on the verge of coming down ill myself- which after my extended lurgy last year is not a happy prospect. We're both tired and sad, not to mention feeling like we just can't get a break when it comes to finally being able to get Knox moved here once and for all. 

And, E. is out of the country on holiday, so no prospect of any extra assistance with child care just now.

Oh, and the results of the not-trying trying were decidely negative this month. I'm not at all surprised but still felt remarkably blue about it for a bit before resolving that in fact, perhaps trying harder is actually the right way to go.

And now I must go deal with Botany, who is in time out after pitching a fit following the swift removal of the advent calendar, which Knox just caught her raiding. The fun never ends around here, lalalala.

Small but annoying potatoes

I was going to tell the Tale of the Ring, as promised, but I confess I am not having the best of weeks and am not in a great frame of mind. It seems petulant to complain about the relatively minor things that are weighing me down- compared to the real problems of others, it is small potatoes. And yet, they are my small potatoes and seem in need of unloading all the same.   

Knox had his Big Important Scary Interview yesterday for his dream job, but he didn't get through to the next stage of the recruitment process. This is disappointing, to be sure but he was quite preoccupied with preparing for it for ages now, and everything else has had to temporarily take a back seat. That might not ordinarily would be not such a big deal except that there's this WEDDING and all, and I am beginning to anxiously watch the days slip by with certain key details (you know, flowers, music, how am I actually going to get to the venue in my pretty white frock) still not nailed down.

Then I feel silly because after all, it's still not entirely clear what he is going to do for a job in the same city as me and Botany and in the long run, that's more important (and scary).

The goddamn mouse is still in residence. I know I said I would stop wittering on about it so much but it's starting to really bug me that the little fucker is managing to crap absolutely everywhere and is utterly resistant to bait, traps and other cruel and unusual methods of destruction. Plus it makes me jump out of my skin every time I unthinkingly wander into the kitchen for a glass of water without turning on the light first and next thing I know there's a small gray object darting across the floor.

I'm worried about money. When I moved into this flat last year, the valuation report flagged up that the windows needed some repairs and maintenance. Since the whole experience of splitting up with E. was already so eyewateringly expensive, I halfheartedly got one quote from a company that weren't really all that interested in doing the work, and then I did nothing else about it. Turns out that original estimate was way off base, because a year and two more quotes later, I have a better idea of what it will really cost. And it's hideous. I can either stump up the cash now and be done with it, or spend the next winter shivering in the icy cold drafts wafting in with a repeat of last season's ghastly fuel bills. Unfortunately I am also spurting money from every artery on wedding related gubbins and you know, generally, the economic climate is not looking so hot just now. 

Botany's early morning wakings are maddeningly close to being something resembling manageable in that she has taken to sleeping until 6-6.30 most days. Then, just when we think we're doing better, she pulls a 5am wake up (or earlier) call for several days in a row. It's become an extremely sore point between me and Knox as to how to handle it; in fact, probably the only thing we ever argue about. In many ways I worry more about her wake ups contributing to the friction about the issue than I do about actually having to get out of bed.

There are other various and sundry tensions brewing with family members which I am not at liberty to write about for fear of discovery. But let's just say I am especially stressed about it given that I'm not sure how to resolve the issues, other than to give myself a personality transplant together with rewriting my chequered past.    

Lastly, I have a spot the size of Nebraaaaaskka on my chin. I know I should leave it Strictly Alone but I am never very good at that, plus it hurts and I find myself inadvertently clawing at it. It's so yucky that Botany has actually taken to pointing at it, or even poking it with her little finger saying, "Mummy has sore spot on chin." Yes, darling. Thank you for repeating that in front of my parents, the grocery store clerk and the nursery staff. Your verbal skills are outstanding.

Really, Botany's speech does make my jaw drop regularly these days. It's actually starting to freak me out a little. Yesterday I put a new dress on her and she said quite calmly and clearly, "take the tags off."  This kid is 22 months going on 12. And she's healthy, gorgeous and bright as a button- which, when I think about it,  makes the above complaints pale into tiny spuds of insignificance.

Peace

Ugh. I had all these grand plans of catching up with things over the holiday period; somehow I had this fuzzy notion that being off work for a couple weeks was going to help. Oh hahaha. Instead, while my sinus infection segues neatly into another ghastly chest cold, I've been in blue arse fly mode. Last minute presents! Food for dinner! Register Botany and myself at a doctor's which does not involve a 40 minute walk and/or parking nightmare! Cards- em, yeah, those! Bake something! Wrap something! Jingle around the clock!

For extra amusement value, Botany is cutting molars top and bottom, has her own cough to contend with, and at the start of the week, was in the foulest of moods. When not screaming or throwing a raging tantrum about something mystifying (cup? no cup? that other cup? the cup is too full? not full enough? what? what? what?) she clings to me like a barnacle. And happy as I am to carry her about with my increasingly buff arms, it does get a little tricky trying to do basic life stuff, never mind Christmas preparation while toting a 16 month old about. 

 Anyway- I feel I need to explain myself about this post which has upset a (now apparently former) reader. Due to the general life backlog (see above) I only just got around to reading the comment, hence the delay in responding. 

For the record, I apologise if I caused offence in any way. Evidently, I have.  My intention was certainly not to represent the period of my life during which I struggled with infertility as "halcyon" in itself. God knows it wasn't. Rather, I was referring to the community in which I experienced a tremendous amount of support and friendship, and what it was like to be blogging then, and how it changed my life forever. Even when things were at their crappest, it made a huge difference to know that there were people out there who understood. That was the halcyon part, not the circumstances that brought us there. What Pru's blog was referencing, and what I was picking up on, is that some extent, that original sense of community from that time seems to be gone- or at least profoundly changed, and I was attempting to muse on why that is. 

 I would never, for one second, wish the experience of infertility on anyone, or try to depict it as a merry lark which was delightful to go through. Never. Nor have I forgotten what it was like. My heart goes out to anyone who is still struggling. For a long time, I felt like I was last one left behind, while everyone else moved on, and there is not a day that goes by when I don't feel grateful for how things turned out for me as far as being able to be a mother to Botany. 
 
 I try to be conscious of the feelings of anyone out there who may be having an IF nightmare but still somehow tunes in to read what I have to say. Personally, I couldn't hack reading parenting blogs while I was struggling with infertility for the very reasons Jen mentioned in her comment- it does hurt like hell from the other side. No matter how gracious you might be, or how much you wish the person well. You want it to be you, goddamnit, and you sit there, aching and thinking, "Why her and not me? Why?" And it's worse on the days when you sense the recipient of such good fortune is perhaps less than grateful for what they have.  I am aware of that, really I am.

At the same time, the reality for me is that parenting, particularIy as a single mother, is really damn hard. There are days when I honestly don't know how I am going to hold it together to do everything that has to be done without having an exhausted breakdown. Yes, I desperately wanted this, and I got it, whereas others have not. And I realise that sucks. But what I am dealing with(the state of singlehood not being one of my choosing, I might add) is taking an immense toll on me at the moment. I try to keep a lid on what might well be perceived as whining and complaining, because hey- how is that fun to read? At the same time, there is stuff going on that I need to be honest about. Because I do enough effing grinning and bearing it with my stiff upper lip all day without coming to my personal blog and pretending everything is great all the time.  
 
I regret if that rubs anyone up the wrong way. I just want you to know that no matter what, it is absolutely not my intention to belittle, or demean, or be insensitive to others, especially those who are in the middle of their own infertility difficulties. I'm truly sorry if anyone felt otherwise.

Next time: some good news, I promise!  And until then- I wish you all peace and a happy holidays.